After watching I TRIED WRITING LIKE J.K. ROWLING FOR 2 DAYS, I decided to try making my own plot spreadsheet. I didn't know this before watching Kate Cavanaugh's video, but Rowling used spreadsheets to keep track of her plots and one spreadsheet, made for Order of the Phoenix, has made the rounds on the web. I'm already ~7,000 words into my 15-16,000 word fic, but I figure there's no harm in making a more concrete outline than the bare-bones plot diagram/list I made when I started that isn't as helpful as I'd hoped it would be. I think I've finally found my preferred method of plotting/outlining! I really like how I can actually see what plots and subplots I need to work on incorporating vs ones I have a good hold on. And while I was making the spreadsheet, I managed to come up with entirely new subplots and some new scene ideas. Rowling drew her spreadsheet by hand, but my handwriting is atrocious and I would stress way too much about the sizing of columns and rows and fitting the page and never get around to actually filling it in, so I used google docs instead. Like hers, the rows are plots/subplots and the columns are chapters. I decided to forgo a timeline column because my story occurs entirely during December before Christmas and if I try too hard to fit it into specific days of the month, I'll get too bogged down by technical details than actually writing. It's definitely a method that works for me. Though I have no idea how I missed JK's spreadsheet- I'm usually more aware about released Harry Potter info.